Ursula K. Le Guin: A Wizard of Earthsea (EBook, 2012, Clarion Books)
eBook, 210 pages
English language
Published Sept. 10, 2012 by Clarion Books.
Originally published in 1968, Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea marks the first of the six now beloved Earthsea titles. Ged was the greatest sorcerer in Earthsea, but in his youth he was the reckless Sparrowhawk. In his hunger for power and knowledge, he tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tumultuous tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.
I'm sure everyone knows this by now, but Le Guin's foray into all-ages fantasy is tremendous. Her writing style is as lean as ever, and the social specificity of all her work is refreshing. Takes the mytho-poetic mode of fantasy and the Bildungsroman and delicately rearranges both.
